Ruins
The ruins were falling into the dusty ground;
the sun was dipping low on hill that knew no age.
Their story I knew not, an old palimpsest page
scrubbed dry, with its letters nevermore to be found.
Old maps had shown their place, but not even a name
remained of their old pride; all memory was gone.
Centuries they had seen in which dawn followed dawn,
every night like the next and every day the same.
Yet here the stones remain; they resist their long death,
and they shall be standing when my corpse is interred.
I have no stable stone, only my woven word:
written, a spot of ink; spoken, a puff of breath.
But though I one day die, words crumble slower still,
and you may read this verse like ruins on a hill.
